


where are you now

by cpt_winniethepooh



Series: when i look at him [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AO3 FB Challenge, Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Till the end of the line, some even have lines, standard TWS triggers but nothing explicit, the avengers are mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 12:57:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13881336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpt_winniethepooh/pseuds/cpt_winniethepooh
Summary: Steve gets his best friend back. A short meta-ish drabble for the AO3 FB challenge. The closest I ever get to gen, I guess (but if you've read other parts of the series you know where this goes), and it's still pretty gay.Part of the 'they fade to nothing when i look at him' universe, but this story is fully comprehensible without the rest.





	where are you now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Menatiera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menatiera/gifts).



> look, people, i never wanted this to become a universe. much less to write a steve pov chapter. even less to write gen. but here we are. i don't even know. 
> 
> as always, written for and betaed by the loveliest of Menatieras <3
> 
> title from Alan Walker's Faded, just to keep with the theme :)

People say you don't know what you have until you lose it.

Well, that certainly's never been the case with Steve, unless you maybe count him losing his dozens of health problems as actual losses. His Ma's unmeasurable efforts to keep him alive he _did_ appreciate even through what the future - oh, sorry, the _present_ , now - likes to call teenage angst, not that he had experienced it much in the first place. He was too busy trying not to die to be mean to his mother, thank you very much. (Not that he says this often, especially after Natasha cussed him over the head that one time he let it slip to Tony.)

Bucky... it still hurt to think about Bucky-- no, that's not true. It still hurt to think about Bucky's death, especially in the 21st century, until Bucky came back. For everybody else that had been decades ago, and to most, nothing but a tragic story: the childhood best friend gives his life for his country on a mission, shortly before the real hero does too.

And those words... Steve never liked hearing them out loud, _best friends_ , because while Bucky and Steve certainly were, the words somehow never managed to convey the depth of their bond. The fact that Sarah struggled for years but only died right after she made Bucky promise to take care of Steve, not that Bucky needed any prompting. The fact that Bucky was always quick to follow Steve into every stupid situation, let that be a back alley fight or the European Theater. The fact that Steve had never had to be alone if he didn't want to.

These were luxuries he treasured even back then, before he first lost Bucky when he was drafted, then when he was captured, then when he fell.

People also say that you don't know what you've been missing until you find it, and _that_ is something Steve can wholeheartedly back. Mostly with Bucky.

Before everything, there was hell. The first: loosing his mother before he got to know her what she'd been like as a person instead of only as a mother. The second was loosing Bucky. The third was waking up in a new century where nothing felt or smelled or tasted _right_ , and experiencing the true meaning of loneliness, the likes of which he couldn't have imagined before. The fourth was finding out it had all been for _nothing_ ; the world wasn't a better place by much, bigotry and bullying and hatred didn't disappear, HYDRA didn't disappear; all the evil just got sneakier and Steve hadn't been around to help, while his best friend died and his girl grew old without him and----

Steve lost count around this point, though the worst was yet to come. The most horrendous kind, the ninth circle that has been described by poets as the same kind of frozen, icy world in which Steve has been suspended - Bucky, tortured, abused, twisted into a _monster_ -

For seventy years.

Steve's heart would break for anybody, but it is Bucky - it is his kind, protective, pulp-loving goofball of a friend, absolutely undeserving of anything but the best, _Bucky_ \- who he was supposed to catch, to save again, but he couldn't, the train of his life went on, Bucky - Bucky, not knowing him -

Steve suffered the kind of break from which one and only one thing could heal: Bucky, himself healing.

And Bucky does.

And Steve had no idea how much he actually missed him until he got him back.

First amendment: it's not a 100% of his Bucky that he got back. There's quite a bit of the Winter Soldier in him, that... _creature_ that HYDRA cultivated by taking Bucky's skills and patience and determination and morphed them into something absolutely atrocious. Steve's still shaking with rage when he thinks about that, so he does his best not to, mostly for Bucky's sake as Bucky made peace with the Soldier much sooner than Steve.

But Bucky is there too and that's all that matters.

What Steve told Natasha still stands: not many people can he find shared life experiences with. Sure, volunteering with the elderly does wonders and they seem to like him, whether it's soup kitchens or bridge parties. But those people saw the world change in front of their eyes gradually, not drastically to give whiplash like Steve.

Then there's the vets: no wonder Steve hangs out around Sam a lot, both at his and the Center. Battle fatigue, nightmares, adjustment issues - these are things he can relate to, and far too well at that, even if back in his day they had no fancy names for them. But none of Sam's vets are surprised by seatbelts or the new taste of bananas or the wide range of neon pastel oil paints available.

(Steve used to want to find a coma patient for himself to bond with. In hindsight the irony is not without notice.)

Bucky is all of those things at once, and after he more or less recovers from his own trauma he gets traumatized again by seemingly the smallest things: the wide selection of foods available at the store, the _price tags_ , how you can buy alligators from second-hand animal stores.

'Alligators, Steve, _alligators!_ Who would want to keep _those?_ '

Sure, he (unfortunately) did not spend all of those decades in suspended animation, so he's less shocked about, say, fashion. Takes to huge, comfy sweaters like a duck to water, and once he finds out nobody can send him to jail for dressing however he wants, dresses in pink for a solid week straight.

'It's only Wednesdays that should be pink,' Stark says, and then of course Movie Night is spent watching _Mean Girls_.

He is more up to date with history, or at least certain devastating aspects of it. And he loooves modern technology with a fervour Steve could never achieve; then again, Bucky's always been a geek.

Still, talking with Bucky again is like... like Steve was the last surviving member of a tribe with an extinct language, and then he found the _other_ last surviving member. He doesn't tell this to anybody because he's not sure it isn't harmful to be comparing himself to some native tribesmen, but the feeling remains.

Half of it is because Bucky went through similar experiences. The other half is because he is _Bucky_ : best friend since childhood, inseparable from playground to battlefield.

At least the Smithsonian got some things right.

Even with his troubled mind and the years spent apart Bucky understands him from half-words. From glances, really - it's the most magical out in the field, when they have to battle evil and prevent world damnation; they move in tandem, and it's more like a dance than an actual fight, and then the next Movie Night is all about rewatching the footage from grainy cellphones and low-resolution CCTV cameras because according to the team, it's more entertaining than any artificial film.

But it's the most satisfying when they don't have to fight for their lives, really: when something goes bad in the communal kitchen's fridge - a fairly rare occurence, given that they live with Clint Barton - and Steve turns up his nose from the smell and Bucky puts his mug of hot chocolate down and does, 'Ugh, that is just like, what was his name? That kid from sixth grade who pranked you with the dead fish?'

Steve doesn't remember the name of the kid either, just the horrible smell - it was a warm, sunny day and someone Steve had called out earlier for something - Steve doesn't remember that bit either, must've been something along the standard lines of Bullying is Bad and you should Stop - put a dead, already mouldy fish into one of Steve's pockets. The stench - he had to wear his winter jacket to school for a week, the one he actually inherited from his late dad and was far too big and warm for the weather, and then that caused his asthma to flare up...

'I don’t remember beating him up?' Bucky asks, suddenly worried.

'Nah, we tricked him back together,' Steve is happy to supply.

'Oh good,' Bucky grins, and Steve grins back.

'You are freaky,' Stark tells them. Steve grins harder.

And on and on it goes. Although they have been modernized considerably, they still revert back to old school slang and habits, and their suite gets labelled the 'old men's den'. They use straight razors instead of the electronic ones. Textile handkerchiefs instead of paper ones. They like to sit around at dusk, Bucky to read and Steve to draw while the wireless - and Tony gets a mini heart-attack when he learns they call the radio _wireless_ \- plays in the background.

The first time Bucky accidentally refers to water as 'dog soup' Steve could cry.

But there’s also how Bucky hoards Tony’s new tech like his life depends on it - except _now_ Steve doesn’t mind the devices littered around the suite, when it means Bucky’s excited explanations well into the night. How Bucky chats with JARVIS while making coffee, something Steve could never bring himself to do. How Steve is dragged into trying out all the new flavors of ice cream available at the store, because apparently it’s a crime against humanity that he doesn’t have an opinion on pumpkin pie versus hazelnut chocolate chip.

Bukcy _loves_ the future, even though the road that took him there has been the pretty way through hell. And somehow seeing his enthusiasm over e-readers because it means he can carry a whole library with him, or his love for Ethiopian food which was unfathomable back in their childhood, makes Steve have a more forgiving eye for the future as well. Give it a fair chance, now when he doesn’t feel like a fish forcefully tossed out to the ground.

Having Bucky by his side feels like stepping out of Erskine's machine again. He can breathe properly, and see, and hear, and walk, and _live_ , the way he was meant to - because his best friend is with him again, is his _own person_ again, and nothing can take that away, ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> i kind of also have a pepper chapter in the writing and a bucky chapter as an idea; encouragement is always welcome, let that be kudos or comments!
> 
> (((also if someone understands how english verb tenses work please hit me up. my native language has a grand total of three: past, present and future and these 12 english ones get mixed up incomprehensibly sometimes in my head and also my writing--)))


End file.
